Windsor water supply goes fluoride free (with video)

The Windsor Utilities Commission has ceased fluoridation of potable water for Windsor, Tecumseh and LaSalle.

Doug Schmidt, Windsor Star

Updated: March 25, 2013

Wayne White, production supervisor, turns off the flow of fluoride into the drinking water in the control room at the A.H. Weeks Water Treatment Plant, Monday, March 25th, 2013. (DAX MELMER/The Windsor Star)

With a couple of computer clicks in the control room of the A.H. Weeks Water Treatment Plant in East Windsor, more than 50 years of adding fluoride to the city’s water supply to fight cavities ended Monday afternoon.

“Out of Service” blinked in red on a digital screen as Wayne White, production supervisor with the Enwin water division, stopped the flow of hydrofluorosilicic acid into the water system.

Within days, a week at the most, the last remnants of fluoride should be gone from the water flowing from taps in Windsor, LaSalle and Tecumseh, city water officials say.

“If you haven’t been brushing, it’s probably a good time to start,” Garry Rossi, the city’s director of water production, said as the flow of hydrofluorosilicic acid was shut off at 4:05 p.m.

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City council voted 8-3 on Feb. 4 to remove what health authorities describe as a preventative chemical following a six-hour marathon meeting the previous week that saw the local medical officer of health and the head of the local and provincial dental societies pleading not to end the practice. On Monday, the Windsor Utilities Commission was notified by provincial environmental authorities that the necessary operating licence amendment had been approved.

In voting to end a practice begun after the passing of Bylaw 2327 on Oct. 16, 1961, council also approved redirecting more than $125,000 in annual savings into a fund to educate the public on dental hygiene practices and to bolster existing programs that assist low-income households in getting professional dental care.

“I think it’s a sad day … there’s no way we can replace fluoridation,” said Liz Haugh, director of health promotion with the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit. The health unit and the local dental society argued, unsuccessfully, that municipal drinking water fluoridation represented a cheap and effective way to combat tooth decay.

“This is great — I’m pleased to see Windsor join the ranks of 67 per cent of Canada and 94 per cent of the world,” said Kimberly DeYong of Fluoride Free Windsor. Her group, formed in 2011, lobbied to have Windsor join the growing list of cities and towns turning away from a practice once described as one of the top public health achievements of the last century.

“The truth of it is, (hydrofluorosilicic acid) can either be drunk, or it has to be treated as hazardous waste,” said DeYong. Rossi said the unused remnants of WUC’s supply will be trucked away by a hazardous waste removal company.

For the most part, the response to Windsor’s decision, both at home and across the province, has been “extremely positive,” said Ward 8 councillor and WUC chairman Bill Marra.

“I’m still disappointed, but the majority rules,” said Ward 6 Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac, one of three council dissenters on the motion to discontinue fluoridation. “I hold trained people in high regard,” she said of the doctors and dentists who spoke out on Jan. 28.

“Not all doctors and members of the medical community were in favour of continued fluoridation,” said Marra. He made sure that most of the more than 80 reports, studies and submissions made to council by both sides on the issue remain on the city’s website.

Ward 4 Coun. Alan Halberstadt, who voted with the majority, said he was later approached by a local dentist who asked him: “How would you like to put in a needle in the mouth of a three-year-old?”

Dr. Charles Frank, a long-time Windsor dentist who is past president of and senior advisor to the Essex County Dental Society, said he anticipates a spike in local caries rates within the next two years.

“I’m disappointed they decided on this course of action,” said Frank, who recommends “more vigilant brushing,” as well as looking at alternatives, including the use of fluoridated toothpaste.

DeYong said it’s because of modern-day alternatives, like fluoridated toothpaste — whose packaging warns of the harmful affects of swallowing — that make municipal water fluoridation unnecessary. She said tea and grape juice are among consumer products containing fluorides.

Last year, Rossi said about 116,000 kilograms of the industrially sourced hydrofluorosilicic acid was added to drinking water by WUC, which delivered an average of 137 million litres of water daily to local consumers. Almost half that amount — 47 per cent — is used for residential purposes, with eight per cent of the total going to Tecumseh and seven per cent to LaSalle.

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